ChinmayC Blog

  Once upon a time there were two warring giants…nay… There Are two warring giants still at it in the country we the subjects live in! Both are veritable giants in their common yet separate playgrounds, no doubt! But the bigger giant of the two always wants to maintain its superiority and increase the margin further and further into the sky! The other not only wants to keep growing but wants to outgrow its rival as fast and sooner as possible! In a way both the giants are obsessed with their competition of growth to beat each other and as an obvious consequence of that obsession they’re basically very scared of losing ground even at the slightest and at times behave like absolute psychopaths. We wouldn’t really want to highlight or elaborate such possible instances of psychic behaviour patterns as we proceed on this story. The intelligent readers are thus going to have to pinpoint the instances for their own sweet interpretation. They have their own rather technically marked out...

The recent Khetri-Sonapur Traveler bus accident on National Highway-27 that killed 7 people has put the menace of road accidents in Assam as well as in India in sharp focus. Bad roads came to the fore as the main reason. And indeed, it was the immediate reason. In fact, a series of accidents had taken place in the stretch between Guwahati and Nagaon in recent months involving high fatalities, and the highway remained full of potholes , craters and unrepaired still. This agitated the local people who decided to hold protests on the highway day and night that led to temporary closure of the Toll Tax gates which seem to be numerous despite the statutory regulations about their spacing. The State Government announced compensation and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) was asked to undertake repairs within a week. The menace of road accidents in Assam has been rising steadily since the last three years with the figure of total road accidents crossing 9000 in 2024 and in...

  VVIPs are undoubtedly the highest privileged class possible in India , if not in many other countries too. VIPs are a bit lower in the ladder and they aim at qualifying fast for the path to the immeasurable favors adorning the highest class. With much easier access to big money these two privileged classes are mushrooming, pushing the ‘useless commoners’ to the lowest possible depth of deprivation and the consequent depravity. Any celebrity, be it the sports stars, the movie stars, the politicians or the industrial/commercial giants or the most powerful bureaucrats or even the organizers who always rub shoulders with the former segments, becomes a VIP and with more efforts involved in the process becomes the VVIP. Nothing is impossible for the VVIPs: want to enjoy a big event at your convenience for which the useless commoners, obviously, express the primary craze along with paying for it? No problems! You can have a darshan any time any day, just express your intention to the ...

The Department of Posts has recently announced changes in its Inland Speed Post services and tariff, adding new features to move ahead with the changing times. The revised tariff will be effective from 1st October 2025. The tariff of Inland Speed Post was last revised in October 2012. Under the rationally revised tariff structure the new rates are not substantially but only marginally higher, taking into account the host of safe, fast and smarter new features added. Additionally, to enhance accessibility of Speed Post services for students, a 10% discount on Speed Post tariff has been introduced.  Besides, a special discount of 5% discount has been introduced for new bulk customers.  In order to further strengthen its position as the preferred delivery service in the country, it has now been upgraded with the following new features aimed at enhancing reliability, security, and customer convenience: ● OTP-based secure delivery ● Online payment facility ● SMS-based deliv...

It’d be wrong if I say I’ll never be able to forget about that particular near-dawn while nestled inside a crammed flat in a congested locality of Kolkata, which was once, in my opinion, given the euphoric title of ‘City of Joy’. Instead, I should say I’ll always remember that particular near-dawn which is essentially to keep myself somewhat prepared for more similar or worse experiences in the near future. Yes, it’s about the IMD-described ‘one of the longest and deadliest summers in India’ of which Kolkata is a very significant part. Now to what happened in that near-dawn which is, in fact, is only a day before .   I woke up suddenly in the dead of the night and immediately felt the oppressiveness which was apparently the cause of waking up. The ceiling fan was whirring above us, my wife and I; but its gusts of air were no longer airy—it only seemed to have lost itself into the relentless clutch of that oppressiveness. I was sweating profusely and the heat rashes all over my bo...

Under the aegis of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (75 Years Celebrations of Independence), a Campaign “ Har Ghar Tiranga ” (Tricolor in Every home) on Independence Day 2022 has been launched by the Government of India to encourage the Citizens to hoist the National Flag of India in their homes to instill a feeling of patriotism in the hearts of people and reminisce the contribution of those who had tirelessly worked for nation building. It is envisaged that all citizens are to be encouraged to hoist the Tiranga in their homes during the period from the 13th - the 15th August 2022. Department of Posts is honored to utilize its vast physical reach and manpower present in each and every corner of the country to inform the citizens about the importance of this momentous occasion through comprehensive outreach campaign.  Under this campaign, National Flags have been made available for sale at Post office counters @Rs.25/- per flag all over India. Online orders can also be placed to get yo...

The Indian summer begins from around the end of March and temperatures start soaring reaching the peak in the month of May in the range of 40 to 47/48 degree Celsius in most parts of North, North-Western and Central regions. This year, 2022, however, the heat began from the second part of March and temperatures soared to much above normal by mid-April reaching the forties. Immediately thereafter, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had declared heat wave conditions and then orange alert in various parts of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. Normally, heat wave conditions are declared when temperatures cross the 40 ℃ mark and orange alert as the 45 ℃ is crossed. The capital city Delhi has been in heat wave conditions for the last fortnight and on Friday, the 29 th of April, the mercury has crossed 46.4 ℃ making this month the hottest ever April in the capital in 72 years. As per the IMD data this April could very well be the ...

Hanuman Chalisa is a collection of forty verses (chalis in Hindi means the number 40) except for two Doha or couplets in the beginning and one Doha at the end, in praise of Lord Hanuman who apart from being the exemplary devotee or Bhakta of Lord Ram is also regarded as an incarnation of Shiva and so, is recognized as a God. The scripture of Hanuman Chalisa is authored by Tulsidas (1497/1532—1623), the famous Bhakti poet-saint of the 16 th century India, renowned for composing the Ramcharitmanas (Lake of the deeds of Rama), retelling of the epic Ramayana. Ramcharitmanas is a monumental poetic creation because of the fact that Tulsidas composed it in the Awadhi or Oudhi language that is taken as a dialect of Hindi and thus taking the epic to the huge arena of the common Indians; Sanskrit scriptures are understood mostly by the scholars of that language. Hanuman Chalisa is also composed in Awadhi.   As we mentioned Hanuman Chalisa is a collection of forty chaupais (four-li...

In a very significant development on Thursday, April 7, 2022, the 193-member United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has suspended the membership of Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), a UN body formed in 2006 to replace the erstwhile United Nations Human Rights Commission, with 47 elected members and a mission to promote and protect human rights around the world. In an urgently called session of the UNGA 93 nations voted for the suspension of Russia, 24 including China voted against the move and 58 nations including India abstained whose votes did not count in the final tally, and therefore, the UNGA got its two-thirds majority to pass the move. Although the move is not legally binding Russia would be effectively prevented from raising its voice in the UNHRC.  Thus, Russia becomes the first permanent member-nation of the UN Security Council to be ousted from a UN body. The other Security Council members are the US, the UK, France and China.   The UNG...

Use of abusive words or slang has been universal in daily conversations of human beings across the globe, since times immemorial perhaps. However, in this piece we’re only interested as to how such cuss words have progressed to more hardened and stronger forms on the celluloid and how they have conquered other very conservative celluloid forms. This is not at all a research paper either; but, interestingly, there is lot of research on the progressively hardening swear words in Hollywood movies—researchers even listing out movies with the maximum number of swear-words used in the dialogues by the characters, one finding a maximum of a near thousand such expressions in a movie of around 90 minutes’ duration. In early times societies in the west too were more conservative, and therefore the swear-words were of the relatively innocent types like ‘heck’, ‘what the hell’, ‘damn’ ‘shit’ and so on. The shift toward the hardened cuss words involving the ‘f***’ or ‘f******’ or ‘as****e’ varieti...